Tuesday 19 January 2010

Strong near term growth for US economy

New Deal Democrat at the Bondad Blog sees strong near term growth for the US economy.

The LEI's will probably be reported later this week [as] having had another good month in December...

Bottom line: the first 3-6 months of 2010 are going to show growth, probably strong growth...

Beyond six months, NDD looks at the yield curve to forecast the economy.

... If you look at only one indicator and nothing else, this is the one to observe. Needless to say, the strongly positive yield curve now foretells strong economic growth throughout the entirety of next year - provided there is no deflation...

A double-dip is unlikely.

[T]he double-dip after the 1980 recession has a very simple and straightforward explanation: Paul Volker of the Fed raised the Federal Funds rate from 9% [to] 19% in 6 months...

... Unless the Fed does the same sort of thing in the next couple of months, a repeat performance is very unlikely...

However, he sees a joker in the deck.

It is disconcerting to say the least that only 2 quarters into an economic expansion following the most serious destruction of consumer demand in over half a century, Oil is already over $80/barrel...

... If there is a dramatic overshooting a la 2007, there will be a double-dip...

Over the longer term, NDD is somewhat pessimistic.

[I]n the last twenty years our economy seems to have lived off of one asset bubble after another, each one requiring lower and lower interest rates, and each one requiring more and more pump priming by the Treasury, as the middle class has gradually been hollowed out and gone deeper and deeper into debt...

... Like a drug user, the US economy requires more and more financial narcotic to achieve the same effect, and as a result expansions and recoveries will become shallower and shorter, and recessions deeper, more frequent, and /or longer, until those issues are addressed.

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